Midwest: Four of the top 25 teams (by rating) are in this group. Grand Canyon has a potentially tough 2nd round game with the winner of Charleston/N Alabama, but I like them to roll all the way to the regional final. #2 seed St Mary's (TX) is a slim two-point favorite over talented #15 seed Miles. Miles is an interesting team, having only played two teams above a 99 RPI all season, and even those were in non-con. They lost both games, but it's never comfortable when you play a team on a 21 game winning streak. Nevertheless, I like St Mary's to roll to the regional final. Grand Canyon over St Marys, chalk in the Midwest.

East: Five of the top teams are in the East, all in the top half of the bracket. #1 seed San Francisco St has their work cut out for them, as I have them meeting a talented U of Indy team in the 2nd round. Picking early upsets is not easy, but I'll go with Indy. I'll take Longwood and their ugly style to meet Indy, with Longwood triumphing. I have Belmont Abbey vs W Alabama, with W Alabama advancing. Any of the other four could meet them but I'll take chalk Bloomfield. In W Alabama vs Bloomfield, I've got W Alabama. In the regional final, Longwood vs W Alabama, it's Longwood.

West: This shapes up as the toughest bracket, with 8 of the top 25 teams here. That being said, I expect Parkside to roll in their half of the bracket, although the committee put 5 top teams in their side: Harding, Wayne St (NE), Incarnate Word, California Davis, and Felician. It's not easy, but Parkside is built like a D-I team and you'd be crazy to bet against them. On the other side, all the higher seeds are capable teams, but I'll go with Cal, San Diego (which is Spanish for something...). But they lose to the Parkside machine in the regional final.

South: Six teams here in the top 25. The bracket is full of landmines, with all of the double-digit seeds a bit scary for the favorites. It's late and I want to pick Valdosta because I watched them roll all year long, but I wouldn't be surprised if this bracket is a complete mess and an unexpected seed wins it. I'll pick Valdosta, but with a caveat of expect the unexpected.

OK - So my tourney predictions did not go super smoothly.
At least I was pretty close on the #1 seeds, with all 4 receiving either a #1 or a #2.
Here were my predictions. In parentheses is the actual seed in the NT. Below are the teams that made the tourney that I discounted.

Posted by bbunch on 7/11/2013 6:09:00 PM (view original):I can't believe you're picking us, Dave. Get back to me if we get out of the 1st and 2nd round.....just not sure how we will manufacture points.

#1 Grand Canyon (81-64 over #16 Virginia Union, 68-58 over #9 N. Alabama) - with a 6 Sr. , 6 Jr. superclass, and with Wisconsin-Parkside's demise, they're now one of the favorites to take home the title. They score very effeciently from inside and outside the arc, and obviously have ridiculous depth.

#12 Missouri St. Louis (67-55 over #5 Slippery Rock, 84-67 over #13 Dominican) - since nobody's really shocked by Bellarmine, these guys might be the Cinderella story of this tournament. There's a whole lot of depth and excellent gameplanning from this junior-laden team - they could be much scarier next season.

#6 Assumption (74-64 over #11 CSU San Bernardino, 80-68 over #14 Augusta St) With 10 upperclassmen, Assumption has never met a 3-pointer that they didn't want to shoot. They seem to rebound all of their misses, too, which makes it hard to just focus on their 3 point shooting. Like Missouri St. Louis, there's been a lot of lineup changes throughout the season, as they adapt the lineup for the matchup.

#2 St. Mary's TX (78-70 over #15 Miles, 64-54 over #10 Florida Southern) Is anyone surprised to see this team in the Sweet 16? They've been to the Sweet 16 or better their last 6 seasons. While this is not the best St. Mary's squad I remember in terms of dominant players, they have depth and defense this season. Maybe the best inside play of anyone left in the Midwest.

East

#8 Indianapolis (#9 86-72 over Wayne St. (MI), 83-78 over #1 San Fransisco St. (OT)) - Well Indianapolis is definitely much more talented than the #8 seed projected. A defense oriented team, they surprisingly scored in the 80's in the first two tourney games, meaning that they can manufacture points as well. Definitely a scary squad.

#5 Longwood (66-55 over #12 Cal U PA, 59-46 over #13 Lemoyne) The ugly-ball Longwood Lancers and their whopping 62 points per game made it into the sweet 16 Their shut-down defense and complete lack of scorers turns every game into a brutal defensive deathmatch, and so far, this strategy has been good to them. No offensive standouts - but you'll never see a team take more charges. They beat Indy in non-conference, so we will see if they can duplicate their success in the sure-to-be-ugly rematch between two of the top defensive teams in DII.

#14 Bellarmine (92-82 over #3 Bloomfield, 73-61 over #6 West Georgia) On the top of my list of "****** off coaches whom I wouldn't want to play against if they were given a double digit seed", greenhawks is #1 and everyone else is much lower. Their very young team got much better as the season progressed. Fear them.

#2 Belmont Abbey (83-62 over #15 Mercy, 73-72 over #7 N. Alabama) Fresh off a huge comeback win over the #7 seed N. Alabama, Belmont Abbey has no fear of greenhawks and the Bellarmine Knights. Why would they? Their last 10 seasons has netted them a national championship, 2 final fours, and 4 sweet 16 bids....so they know what they're doing. This will be a great matchup between 2 awesome coaches.

#1 Valdosta St. (73-53 over #16 CSU Stanislaus, 85-56 over #8 Humboldt St.) - The only thing in their way might be alazer's relative inexperience with Val St. (versus all the DII long-time veteran coaches), but he's proven that he's a great coach throughout the season. Right now, with Parkside's shocking upset, Valdosta St. looks like the best team in the land (with Grand Canyon a close second). They're well rounded - scoring from the perimeter mostly, but their bigs get lots of rebounds and are great players that can't be ignored.

#4 W. Oregon (93-82 over #13 Concord, 75-68 over #5 Barton) - with a very solid win over a very tough Barton squad, W. Oregon has kind of come out of nowhere with a very strong team this year. At 86 points a game, their one of the best offensive teams in DII, and their scoring is extremely well rounded. We will see if Valdosta is too much for them - but so far W. Oregon has proven their legitimacy.

#3 Lander (79-67 over #14 Mt. Olive, 77-73 over #11 CSU - Los Angeles) - bedarded is most likely is the best coach in DII right now to never make it to a final four. This might be one of his best opportunities. With 5 scorers (including 2 reserves) in double figures, led by Dino Greco, the Italian import, Lander might be hard to shut down. They might have to play better than they did in their 2nd roudn game, however, to reach the final four.

#10 Mercyhurst (108-102 over #7 Lenoir Rhyme, 80-76 (OT) over #15 St. Edwards) - this is kind of a "how did we get here" kind of squad, with two extremely close victories. I'll say this, they sure as heck know how to get to the foul line, attempting 57 free throws against Lenior Rhyme and 39 against St. Eds. They have some good guards that penetrate well, and if they can win the foul battle against Lander, they can shock them and get to the Elite 8

West

#9 Wayne St (NE) (95-87 over #8 Harding (OT), 68-66 over #1 Wisconsin-Parkside) - another great coach who historically struggles in the tourney, jtreeves has taken Wayne St. through two upset victories to the Sweet 16. Knocking out hackerhog and emy is no joke - but they run into davefilby, another great veteran coach, in the round of 16. Curtis, Brandstetter, and Jeanpierre are all major top-notch players that can score on anyone. With their big wins thus far, Wayne St. should not be overlooked.

#5 Incarnate Word. (89-66 over #12 Cal-Davis, 80-70 over #13 Limestone) - I think that in DII, the most fconsistently feared team about ten seasons ago was Incarnate Word. Longwood took that crown from them, and then Parkside took that crown from Longwood, and in that time, IW had some relatively weak seasons. There's been a UIW renaissance as of late though, (4th sweet 16 bid in 5 seasons) and they've won despite very average athleticism and defense. Their team is filled with pure shooters who rarely miss free throws, and they have a great coach, so UIW is very dangerous in a close game.

#3 Fairmont St. (56-53 (OT) over #14 S. New Hampshire, 75-56 over Erksine) - I really like this team talent wise, but they're a bit inconsistent. Of their 3 losses, two were pretty strange, and they barely sqeaked by S. New Hampshire. That being said, they also went 10-0 in non-conference, and body-slammed a solid Erksine team in the 2nd round. They play very good D, as team shoot less than 40% against them from the field, and less than 30% beyond the arc against them.

#2 UCSD (100-84 over #15 Ok. Panhandle St., 63-62 over Goldey-Beacom) after a hard-fought win over Goldey Beacom, this very talented squad has a tough one on their hands. Like Fairmont St., they struggle with inconsistency, being 4-4 in their last 8 games before the NT. However, they are surpremely talented. Jesse Christian is the best defensive player in DII who doesn't play for Longwood. Ron Mills is a ridiculously good shooter. They're a challenge, talent-wise, to anyone that they are up against.

Great write up as usual bbunch. St Marys wins ugly, just like Longwood. Hopefully we can find a way to keep winning and get to our 4th straight Final Four. I'd love to get really lucky and win the whole darn thing.